


Last Dance on Charon

by TheoreticalOnly



Series: The Incompleteness Theorem [1]
Category: Heaven Will Be Mine (Visual Novel)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Existential Threat Manifested as Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, F/F, Final Battle, Grievous Bodily Harm to Luna-Terra, Pluto is a BAMF, Pre-Canon, or: How Luna-Terra and the Mare Crisium Get Their Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-24 02:17:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15620310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheoreticalOnly/pseuds/TheoreticalOnly
Summary: As humanity’s existential fear escalates, so too does the Existential Threat itself. The war comes to a head on Charon, where the outer rim of the Solar System — situated outside humanity’s Gravity, and thus at the locus of humanity’s fears — is facing such a great mass of the Threat that its pilots are simply overwhelmed. Ship-selves are felled at an unprecedented and unsustainable rate, rendered useless against the onslaught.At the height of a losing battle, two pilots stand in the Threat’s way of an unevacuated laboratory. And one pilot won’t stand by to watch (for fear is what destroys us, and love what saves us in the end).





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> As in the game, there will be a few lines of dialogue where perspectives and consciousnesses are blended (see: such scene with Saturn and Pluto). I’ll try to make this obvious with italics and parentheses. The game used purple text for the distinction but I will do my best with a single text color. Thanks to y'all for making this tiny fandom so lovely. <3
> 
> Will get the rest of this up later tonight, hopefully.

It is not immediately obvious that they will lose.

Even in the face of its worst fears, against the tangible brightness of the unimaginable, humanity has always triumphed against its own frightful conjurings. That which can be encountered can be understood. Understanding eradicates fear. Compassion obliterates it. And if humanity is built for anything, it is built with an unmatched capacity for love.

To counter its existential fears, humanity fathomed machines perhaps better capable of love than they, second selves of plastic and metal designed to externalize the intentions of their pilots.

The ship-self pilots are good at what they do, almost frighteningly so; they tear through the Threat as effortlessly as breathing, as easily as loving. Victory is second nature. They are enough. They have always been enough.

And so, when the day comes that they are not, humanity is not prepared.


	2. Higher Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mars and Luna-T are the last line of defense against the Threat on Charon.
> 
> Or they are, until Pluto makes a desperate plea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See the first chapter for relevant notes.
> 
> Also!! You can find me on a certain blue hellsite @ mare-crisium.tumblr.com. <3

 

**Mars**

“I don’t understand,” Luna-Terra grunts. She slices through a beam of the ET with her lance, then braces herself against a second wave. Paint is peeling off her ship-self’s hull in large blue flakes and falling away like ash. “How can it be this strong?”

“Shut up and just keep fighting,” Mars replies. With the claw-like hands of the Mons Olympus _(a dedicated brawler like you, Mars)_ she grasps at a fistful of light and shreds. Particles annihilate into bursts of energy between her palms. “I’m taking the top spot on the roster if you can’t keep it up, Luna-T!”

Luna-Terra laughs. “If you think I’m letting you finish first _now_ you’re dead wrong, babe.” She rotates on the right foot of the Mare Crisium and spins, cleaving the blade of her lance through another nearly invisible mass. “Besides, it’s more fun for me getting to watch you come second. Why should I let you take that away?”

Mars tears through another half-there cloud of light before whipping around to face the Mare Crisium. “You are a whole _ass,_ Luna —”

Her words stop short and her breath leaves her lungs as her ship-self is swept under a massive torrent of particles. The Mons Olympus tumbles to the ground as if kicked, its parts shrieking shrilly beneath the weight of something she can’t see. She’s inert for a moment, stunned and aching from the impact, but she comes to and scrambles to her feet. The Mare Crisium stays down.

"Luna-T, can you still hear me?”

Silence.

“ _Answer me,_ goddamnit!"

Mars waits, and waits, and when the radio silence is too much to bear, she leans the Mons Olympus down to grasp Luna-Terra's ship-self by the throat and haul it to its feet. The Mare Crisium reacts, its elegant head swerving forwards, but still her comms are static.

"Can you hear me, Luna-T?"

The Mare Crisium touches a hand to a spot which, on human anatomy, would be analogous to ears. Mars exhales.

"Don't you scare me like that, Luna-T. Can you stand?"

Before Luna-Terra can articulate an answer through the gestures of her ship-self, a tide of barely-visible light washes over them. The Mons Olympus convulses and drops the Mare Crisium; Mars stifles a cry as her ship-self's hull integrity is once again compromised on a molecular scale, its most basic makeup punctured as if by needles. The machine wails _(like an animal, like a child)_ as the carbon fibres of its ligaments strain to hold the limbs and the chassis intact. Methane and nitrogen from the atmosphere seep — insidious agents — into her air supply, replacing the oxygen faster than her climate controls can quantify the pressure loss. _(Ship-selves are not made for killing, but you can die in one. Mars, we can't lose you. We can't lose you.)_

"Luna-T." The Mons Olympus is prostrated on its knees, plates shifting and fluttering in a great titanium thunder. "Luna-T, I'm losing oxygen."

The Mare Crisium is clutching its side with one hand, but it reaches with the other for the great face of the Mons Olympus, a tender scrape of metal to metal, mind to mind. When it retracts its hand, it signals with a motion to its bleeding legs. The long, elegant limbs are grotesquely mangled, false muscles and artificial bones bent and splintered into unnatural shapes that inspire both awe and nausea.

“What are we going to do?” Mars gasps. It’s colder now in her ship-self, and lighter. “I don’t — I don’t know how much longer I can do this.”

Another voice answers over the comms. "Mars, we can't lose you, too. Yours are the last functional ship-selves."

"Mercury." Mars smiles dizzily. "Long time, no talk."

"Listen to me, Mars." Mercury sounds frantic. "There is no evacuation route for the staff and civilians remaining on Charon. If the structural integrity of the compound fails, everyone dies, and this turns into a real war. Hey. Mars! Wake the hell up! Are you even listening?"

Mars is tired. So tired. What she would give to just lie down and rest, even for a moment. All the other ship-selves are already horizontal in repose. Why shouldn’t she be? Even Luna-T is on the ground, splayed as if in sleep.

_(Mars, stay with us, darling. Don’t slip. Don’t let yourself go.)_

She lifts her head once more.

The landscape before her is littered with the eviscerated carcasses of ship-selves, fractured lances, unstable tidal reactors that push and pull at the machine fragments around them, pulling and repelling, crushing, condensing. Red and yellow synapse fluids tremor in a state of half-death and sluice across the ground towards the exposed reactors, spinning the relics of consciousnesses into maelstroms that the Mons Olympus can hear and feel _(don't give up, keep fighting, my legs, my legs, my hands, my heart, I'm getting torn apart)._ It looks like a scene that has been visited by death, but pilots don't die in this war. No one dies in this war —

"Mars, my readings say you're going hypoxic." It's Mercury again, buzzing like a fly in her ear. "Mars, you're going to die if you don't seal your wounds and connect to an auxiliary oxygen supply."

There's a hand at her ship-self's shoulder. It's the Mare Crisium, using her lance to stand _(follow me, Mars, it's all going to be okay, you're going to be okay, I've got you)._

"The Lo Sulci dropped not far from your location,” Mercury continues. “It's two clicks to the coordinate I gave Luna-Terra, but you'll have to move fast. After you've oxygenated, your orders are to hold the line until we can get all personnel to safety. Do what you must. I have faith in you."

For a moment, Mars thinks she feels Pluto's smile on her, warm, serene. "I'm gonna kick this fucking thing in the _ass."_

Mercury laughs nervously. "Good luck, Mars."

"No, you," Mars slurs. She feels her legs moving beneath her, but she's not moving them consciously. Or she doesn’t think so. The Mare Crisium is hauling her by the wrist, and hauling itself by the grace of its pilot's mettle. "I don't need luck with Luna-T on my side."

The line begins to break. Or maybe it’s just Mercury’s voice. “I bet you don’t.”

* * *

**Luna-Terra**

Luna-Terra collapses at the corpse of the Lo Sulci, vacated hours ago by its defeated pilot. Mars has ceased her increasingly nonsensical babbling, which Luna-Terra can only take to mean that she’s passed out _(and she’s just passed out, and she will recover, and she will be exactly the same as before, the same except changed by war)._ God be good, her hands are more intact than her legs, and she sets about extracting the oxygen tanks from the Lo Sulci to transplant them into the Mons Olympus. It’s delicate work, but Luna-Terra has the manual finesse, if not the time.

“Please be okay, Mars,” she whispers.

She’s moving one of the auxiliary oxygen tanks into place when another blast of the Threat wracks the crumbling body of her ship-self, and, unprepared for the impact, she drops the tank; the liquid oxygen splashes up onto her foot and freezes almost instantly, trapping her in place.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

_(Don’t panic, Luna-Terra, just breathe. Your love is stronger than your fear.)_

Luna-Terra knows better than to struggle when her ship-self’s legs are already so fragile. Instead, she focuses on the task at hand, and maneuvers herself into a kneeling position for stability. She can’t afford to drop the Lo Sulci’s other oxygen tank.

This time, when the next wave of the Threat hits, Luna-Terra is ready for it: ready for the overwhelming weight, the pain, but she grits her teeth and continues her work, even as the Mons Olympus bellows and whines beneath the onslaught, its composition stretching and contracting, resisting and surrendering, the plates and structures that keep Mars warm and alive fraying at their edges. Luna-Terra works anyways. She will stave off the inevitable if she can _(and you can, Luna-Terra, I can feel it),_ will do the impossible if she must. If reality is bending she’ll break it before it can break her.

Once her sensors indicate that the Mons Olympus is oxygenated again, she takes her lance and frees the Mare Crisium’s trapped foot.

Her comms crackle to life. “Luna-T,” Mars groans. “Thank you.”

Luna-Terra attempts to respond, but while her receiver is still functioning, her mic is not. Instead, she bestows a lingering touch of two fingers between the eyes of the Mons Olympus. _(Stay.)_

There are no winds on Charon, but the Threat feels like one, roars like one, passing around and _through_ the Mare Crisium, _through_ Luna-Terra, and it’s in her skin, her organs, pulling at the very bonds of her cells and tissues. It isn’t quite painful, but it’s deeply unsettling, and she is suddenly cognizant of a mortal fear she thought her training had expunged. ( _Ship-selves are not made for killing, but you can die in one. An intact hull is what keeps humanity, and Culture, alive. Galvanize your gravities. Hold yourselves together. Just a little longer.)_

* * *

**Pluto**

“Dr. Nix, _please,_ be reasonable. I know it’s only a prototype, but what other choice do we have? Even our most decorated pilots can’t handle the augmented Threat, and every minute we spent waiting for reinforcements is another minute wasted.”

While it is normally beneath Pluto to beg, she has her hands together as if in prayer (something she is told people do on Earth and _mean_ it), palms aligned, tips of her fingers pressed under her chin, a gesture that will have Dr. Nix poring over notes after all of this is over to ascertain where the young Princess adopted such an Earthly mannerism.

“Dr. Nix.” Pluto is quieter now, her words slowed down and enunciated to the highest possible level of articulacy. “You’re like a mother to me, Dr. Nix, which I know I shouldn’t say, but it’s true. So please. If you won’t let me do this for myself, and for my own self-preservation, which I do very selfishly want, let me do this for you.”

She holds her breath. Dr. Nix looks at her impassively before she finally says, “Despite my efforts, you really are the most human of us all.” The barest hint of a smile graces her lips. “Let’s get you suited up.”

Pluto thinks she’s going to vibrate out of her skin, or perhaps that she will be overwhelmed by her own gravity and everted on the spot. “Thank you, Dr. Nix. You won’t regret this.”

“If I live to have that opportunity, I probably won’t,” Dr. Nix agrees. She nods, resuming her habitual composure. “To the ship-selves. Iapetus! Europa! I need you in the west bay of the hangar in no more than five minutes. We’re running a test.”

“A _what?”_ Iapetus shouts from the adjacent room.

“Always at the eleventh hour,” Europa sighs.

On her way to the hangar, Pluto feels the slowing of time; there’s a tug inside her pulling her outwards, and her pulse accelerates to match the heartbeat of another, and she feels Mars waking from a hypoxic slumber, afraid. She feels Luna-Terra bracing for a hopeless battle that will surely kill her in the end. She feels time running out. She feels the approaching threat singing in her nerves, in her marrow, in her liver, bitter and undeniable as bile _(because ship-selves are not made for killing, but you can die in one, and both of you are on a certain trajectory towards the complete disintegration of your lifelines)._

Dr. Nix leads them down an empty corridor into a fitting room. “Here,” she says, tossing a skin-tight black suit towards her. “This is Princess Triton’s, but seeing as her ship-self is no longer of use, I’m sure she won’t mind if you borrow it.”

Pluto changes efficiently while Dr. Nix runs a few last-minute probabilities. There’s perspiration gathering at her hairline. If she had not been modified with minimal, nigh-sweatless pores, Pluto imagines she’d be perspiring nervously, too.

“The Prototype Sputnik Planitia is being prepped for launch,” Mercury says over the comms. His voice is laced with a certain amount of dread. “Calling Test Pilot Delta to the west bay of the Lagrange Memorial Hangar in T minus two. Launch sequence will initiate in T-minus five.”

There’s no time for any exchange which could satisfy a potential good-bye. Dr. Nix just places a hand between Pluto’s scapulae and nudges her gently into the west bay and into a lift that takes them to the Sputnik Planitia’s cockpit. Already the ship-self is humming for her, beckoning her to its controls.

“Godspeed, Pluto,” Dr. Nix calls as her pupil begins to board.

Pluto turns to face her mentor with a terrifyingly serene smile. “No God on Charon, Dr. Nix.”

_(None except for me.)_

The Sputnik Planitia shrieks the moment it admits Pluto into its cockpit. Several alarms go off at once as the gravity well is pushed abruptly to its physical and mechanical limits; the joints of the machine are sparking and trembling, fingers spasming and seizing, but the Sputnik still moves at its pilot’s commands, stiffly but moving nonetheless, into the airlock, and then outside, where the noises are lost to the varnish-thin atmosphere, and to the ostensible absence of anyone who might hear.

There’s a light on the horizon, a mirage, or an aurora, rippling and cascading at the edge of all sight. From here, the Threat is almost beautiful, but barely there.

_“Princess.”_

Pluto glances down to find the Mons Olympus crumpled at her feet; the long trail behind it suggests that its pilot crawled her ship-self here on all fours.

The Sputnik Planitia crouches before the Mons Olympus; Pluto takes the great surrogate face of Mars between the stigmata of her ship-self’s quaking palms. “It’s over now, my love. Or it will be. Very soon.”

She can feel Mars smiling up at her as she stands and takes her leave.

“You’re four clicks from the line that Luna-Terra has been holding.” Mercury’s voice manifests in her comms once more. “I don’t expect you need any instruction.”

Pluto picks up her pace. “I’ve been training my whole life for this. Just tell me one thing, Mercury.”

“What?”

“Tell me I’ll be the same when it’s over.”

* * *

**Luna-Terra**

She senses Pluto before she sees her. The way her head swims and her spirit soars — there’s no one else. Luna-Terra turns to see the Sputnik Planatia advancing and she drops her lance, drops down to the remnants of her knees in reverence _(I know you’re tired, Luna-T, I know, it’s okay, rest now)_ , clutching her heart as the Mare Crisium’s hull threatens to fracture apart.

Luna-Terra has only seen Pluto once in person. She’d seemed as big then as she did now, piloting her prototype, but now, as she sprints headlong into the velvet light of the Threat with her palms turned heavenwards, no hesitation, no holds barred, Luna-Terra can’t help but think of her as one of the terrible, beautiful archangels of old, haloed by a thousand wings and preceded by the four words now ringing in her skull:

_Do not be afraid._

Pluto brings her hands together, fingers aligned and resting against her ship-self’s face. She stands in the center of the Threat unperturbed. Stands still and strong as she light fades around her, as the light pools into the stigmata of her ship-self’s palms, and it does not occur to Luna-Terra that she should move. She watches, spellbound, as the entirety of the Threat is woven and wound into Pluto’s gentle grasp, until it is beaming bright as a nascent star, until Pluto’s hands close into fists, and the particles annihilate, and the ensuing blast of energy blows the Mare Crisium clean into the air.

* * *

**Subject: Unavailable**

**Origin:** Ambient Tidal Information

 **Author:** [Bleeding Heart]

I see Pluto rising like the sun across the plains of Charon. It’s the sort of sight that they play at the end of movies when you know the heroes have won. I’m glad. I’m glad it’s so fucking cinematic. Maybe one day I’ll sell the rights to this shit and I’ll get rich and settle down with a nice girl who doesn’t mind that I’m —

To be honest I’m not sure if this is my blood. It probably is. But maybe it’s my ship-self. Maybe I’m okay.

We can die in these. We’re not supposed to, but it could happen. I’ve taken her off automatic and put her on analog. If I control her manually, and funnel her power to life support, I think I’ve got a chance. And I think she does, too.

We both survive or we go down together. It’s not sentimental. It’s just a fact. Maybe it’s a little sentimental. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I’d really like not to die today.

* * *

**Dr. Nix**

“Where is she? Where’s Luna-T?”

Europa catches Mars by the scruff of her shirt and pulls her back. “She’s extremely fragile right now, Mars. I can’t let you go in there without scrubbing in first.”

Mars looks to be at the brink of punching someone. She probably is, if Dr. Nix is being frank. “That _bitch!”_ The girl slips out of Europa’s hold and darts into the surgical sanitization chamber. “The war’s over and she’ll be at the top spot on the roster for sure! Selfish goddamn fucking gloryhound —”

Dr. Nix steps in to scrub in alongside Mars. “If you disturb my patient,” she warns kindly, “I will put you in the hospital bed right next to hers.”

Europa chuckles from the doorway. “Come on, Nix. Our pilots have had a rough day of it.”

“Haven’t we all.” Dr. Nix removes her jewelry and stows them in her cubby. “Pluto is debriefing with Iapetus right now. I thought she deserved some rest first, but he insisted.”

Mars is stripping angrily before the UV shower. “The moment she gets better, I’m going to knock her lights out, I swear.” She turns to Europa and points an accusing finger. “You did this, you know. Made Luna-Terra think she was special enough that she could just fucking die on us. I blame you completely.”

Europa arches a brow. “We’re about to enter a convalescent space. Watch the volume.”

Dr. Nix and Europa watch as Mars passes through the UV shower and slips into a sterile suit before flinging herself bodily into the convalescent wing and making a beeline for its sole occupant. It’s hard not to smile at the scene. Mars halts at the bedside and folds her arms across her chest, silent, back turned so her instructors can’t see her cry.

“How soon can I expect to see my ace back on duty?” Europa asks, not looking away.

Dr. Nix checks her charts. “Well, Luna-Terra sustained significant burns along her left side, not unlike those of weaponized radiation victims in the first half of the twentieth century. Several hemorrhaged organs and a splenectomy later, she’s a bit worse for wear, but should make a full recovery. She may elect for cosmetic skin grafts in the future, but she needs to heal first, and needs to build her immune system back up to par before I’ll even consider it.”

Europa shakes her head. “She won’t want that.”

“Oh?”

“Luna-Terra would never want that for herself, and I don’t think she has the sort of partner who would want that, either.”

They stand in silence for a few minutes longer. Mars has squeezed herself onto the bed along Luna-Terra’s right side and seems to be speaking into her ear. Luna-Terra’s eyes remain closed, but the edge of her mouth is turned up. Not a bad sign, all things considered.

“She wouldn’t have made it without the blood you gave, you know.” Dr. Nix glances at the bandage over Europa’s inner elbow. “And even with the blood, things looked pretty shaky for a while there. You might have been giving it for nothing.”

“No.” Europa smiles and turns to leave. “No, it wouldn’t have been for nothing.”

* * *

**Subject: Re: Unavailable**

**Origin:** Ambient Tidal Information

 **Author:** [Prototypical]

I didn’t mean to hurt you the way I did. It probably doesn’t mean much to you, but I’m sorry for the damage that I caused.

I promise you this, my love. One day, when I do hurt you, it will be because I want to. And because you want me to.

But I don’t think that day will ever come.


End file.
